Dying Young
by RT4ever
Summary: Read me and you'll find out what I'm about, even though I'm sure you can figure it out from the title.


Yes I realize that I have a few stories that are desperately in need of an updating and then will be eventually. This one just kinda happened because I don't really want to be studying so it was my break. I hope you enjoy.  
  
  
  
To An Athlete Dying Young by A. E. Housman  
  
The time you won your town the race  
  
We chaired you through the market-place;  
  
Man and boy stood cheering by,  
  
And home we brought you shoulder-high.  
  
To-day, the road all runners come,  
  
Shoulder-high we bring you home,  
  
And set you at your threshold down,  
  
Townsman of a stiller town.  
  
Smart lad, to slip betimes away  
  
From fields where glory does not stay  
  
And early though the laurel grows  
  
It withers quicker than the rose.  
  
Eyes the shady night has shut  
  
Cannot see the record cut,  
  
And silence sounds no worse than cheers  
  
After earth has stopped the ears:  
  
Now you will not swell the rout  
  
Of lads that wore their honours out,  
  
Runners who renown outran  
  
And the name died before the man.  
  
So set, before its echoes fade,  
  
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,  
  
And hold to the low lintel up  
  
The still-defended challenge-cup.  
  
And round that early-laurelled head  
  
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,  
  
And find unwithered on its curls  
  
The garland briefer than a girl's.  
  
I searched for this poem last night as I was unable to sleep…I've barely slept for hours this past week. I keep thinking about what they said at your funeral service, how you would never grow old, how you would always remain perfect, they said you died in your prime, that you would never have to experience the hardships of life, that even though you had been taken from us early we should find solace within that.  
  
What they hadn't realized was that you had many hardships and that you had finally learned to overcome them. You finally learned you didn't have to be who they thought you were. That you could be yourself and that the best is always yet to come, but you never lost your focus that what was truly important was the present because without it there was no future.  
  
I keep seeing your final minutes…our final minutes together. Watching you blue eyes sparkling in the sun as we talked or as we just sat there enjoying the warmth of the sun. You were just lying there almost asleep when we heard the screams.  
  
The moments from there become a blur, I see you running out onto the jetty where other people had gathered. I watched you dive in without a second thought. I watched as you kept diving down looking for that little girl, I don't know how you found her. But when you came up with her in your arms and she was limp, we were so scared, you swam back towards the rocks and we got her up onto the rocks. Then that wave came…God why didn't we see the wave? Why didn't we get you up faster? The wave came you were taken with it. I remember screaming as I saw you helpless in it. Then seeing your beautiful head cracked up against a rock and your body went limp. They got you out, but it was too late. They said you died instantly.  
  
God Tristan I just remember your beautiful hair, normally the color of the sand we had just been lying on, unnaturally died that awful color. I can still its warmth against my hands. I can feel you against my hands. I remember what your heart felt like and I remember feeling your chest and feeling it absent.  
  
It's been four days since then. Only four days…You've been gone from this world for a full four days now. Do you remember how we talking about how we didn't want to go back to school at the end of this week? We were saying that we didn't know how we were going to survive without each other. Who would have thought that coming home after freshman year, I would find such great joy with my so-called enemy?  
  
We were so different though than the people we'd been in high school. But we changed enough so that we were perfect together. Our lives seemed so on track, just a few days ago. You promised to take me on that duck tour when you came up to visit. You asked how I could be living in Boston and not have gone on the duck tour. So many promises Tristan, so many plans made and we don't get to follow through with any of them.  
  
We don't get to live our lives because had to be so brave, when everyone else was too much of a coward, you had to be brave. You couldn't sit on the sidelines and watch that six-year-old girl die. God do you have any idea how much I hate you for having such a good heart? How much I hate that little girl and I hate her goddamn negligent parents?  
  
I hate everyone so much now that you're not here. How is everything just going on when you're not in the world? Don't they realize how much is missing from the world? Don't they realize that the earth should have stopped spinning? There should be no night, no day, no seasons; there should be nothing without you.  
  
But they don't and I'm the only one feeling this. They all have this memory of the perfect playboy. They'll look in their photo albums and yearbooks years from now with their kids and the kids will ask who was that? "Oh that was Tristan, wasn't he beautiful? He was such a great, what a shame that he died so young." But no one will ever top you, you will never see anyone more popular than you, more beautiful, you died before you'd ever have a gray hair, but you died after you stopped caring about those things.  
  
Your eyes linked with mine in their final moments as you got that girl up onto the rocks, your eyes were linked with mine as that wave hit and I saw how frightened you were, or were you frightened because you saw mine and you heard my scream and you realized how bad it was? You were as scared as I that our future might not happen, did you realize at the same time I did, that just because we were in love we weren't guaranteed anything besides our dreams?  
  
That's all I have left now. Dreams of the future we'd planned these last three months. Dreams of you driving up as often as humanly possible. Dreams of Fez over winter break. Of you showing me all the places you'd told me about scattered across the globe. Most importantly the dream of you holding me in your arms every night. Like the night we spent sleeping on the beach at your grandfather's place in Martha's Vineyard.  
  
I'll never see those little rambunctious kids we talked about, I'll never see the perfect blend of us in anywhere but my dreams.  
  
Your grandfather brought me something last night that I can't bear to look at because I know what it is. I don't want to see it without you. I want you here and I want you to place it on my finger after promising to love me forever and to never leave me. Never let me experience this type of pain. He said it had been your grandmother's and that you had asked him for it two weeks ago. That you planned to give it to me, our final night together before we went back to school. He said that I should have it, that it belonged on my finger even though you weren't here to put it on. I don't know if I'm brave enough for that though.  
  
You told me how I brave I was once, and how proud you were of me. I'm not brave I realize this now; I'd just known I could get through anything as long as you were by my side. I don't know what to do without you though. I don't know how I'm returning to school in a few days, I don't know how I'm going to face a future that doesn't include you.  
  
It's funny though because even if I could go back to May 18th, the day we ran into each other at the country club, I wouldn't. Not for one second. In three months you've changed my life completely, you brought more love to it than I ever believed was possible. No, I wouldn't give up this pain for anything. This pain means I loved, that I was loved. NO! This pain means that I LOVE and that I AM LOVED. That is not going to change because you're not here physically, you're here in my heart and that's never going to change. I will never have to live without you because you will never leave me. I guess I said the words for you. I don't know if it's that I'm brave enough to see this ring everyday as a constant reminder of everything I'll never have. Or if it's that I'm not brave enough to not remember how much I'm loved, how much love I have in my life, the memories of you that will flood to me every time I see this ring. So I guess I'm ready to open it.  
  
Oh god Tristan, it's beautiful and it fits perfectly, you wanted to make that day perfect didn't you? You wanted it so that once this ring was on my finger it wouldn't come off until the day you made me your wife. We'll never get to make those vows before our family and friends, but we made it to each other and I'll make it to you again and to God. I will love you forever, nothing will ever change that that. I, Lorelei Gilmore promise not to love you till death do us part, but for all eternity. One day Tristan, one day, we'll be together again, but until then I know that you'll always be watching over me and you'll always be in my heart. Good- bye my darling, I'll miss you. 


End file.
